: sounds like thermal rather than impact stress. It could be from moisture in
: the wood condensing during the cold flight, and then evaporating from the
: heat of direct sunlight.

: If it doesn't actually leak, and the boat is still holding together, then you
: probably don't have to do any repairs at all -- at least for a while. I
: suspect the problem is on the bottom of the resin, next to the wood, so
: putting additional resin on top of the existing surface would be a waste
: of time and money.

: To maintain things you should lightly sand and varnish. This is just to
: prevent further damage from UV light.

: If the epoxy and glass layer ever cracks enough to start leaking, or shows
: signs of separation from the underlying wood, you can make a temporary
: patch with duct tape. Hopefully that should last until you get the time to
: do a major repair job.

: When you do repair this, you must sand through all layers of the affected
: glass and resin. Go all the way to the underlying wood, and start again.

: From your description it sounds like you may have two to four large areas to
: patch. Feather the edges of the good glass that remains on the boat for at
: least 2 inches on all sides from the exposed wood area. Trim a piece of
: calss cloth that is an inch or two larger than the feathered area.

: A sealing coat is not necessary as there should still be epoxy in the wood.
: Paint on a coat of resin, and while it is wet, lay on the pretimmed patch
: of glass cloth. Go over this with a squeegee or a brush loaded with more
: resin to wet out the glass, and let it rest until the resin has set. Then
: sand down the overlapping glass cloth, using your fairing board as
: necessary to get a smooth finish. Lightly sand the center of the patch,
: just to knock off any high spots from drips or runs, and apply two filler
: coats of resin to fill the weave of the patch. Then sand the whole canoe
: lightly and varnish the whole thing. The patched areas will probably be
: unnoticeable.

: You might as well wait until the boat gets REALLY banged up. Evne if that
: takes a few more years (or decades). You can repair all the other damage
: that might have happened over the years at the same time. When you are
: done the boat will probably look like new.

: Hope this helps

: Paul G. Jacobson.

Paul,

Thanks for the tips and optimism! I now know where I'm heading now and will do the near-term maintenance you suggest. I don't have any signs of leaks or water soaking into the wood. After reading a lot of the stuff on the website last night I decided that my problem probably is that I sanded the wood too smooth and didn't get an adequate bond. It agrees with your theory of the location of the problem. I thought smooth was better....didn't realize that it would be so difficult to repair.

Barry